..a marvelous book......provides a witty, passionate, radical insider's view of the American film industry that is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the cinema." [read more]
-- John Newsinger

ALA Choice Magazine May 2007
He enriches the book with numerous anecdotes gleaned from conversations with top animators and his own 30 year animation experience. ( Reccomended)
-- J.A. Lent, Temple University

...the best account yet of the 1941 Walt Disney strike, with documentation of the union side. [read more]
-- Mark Greif, co-editor

Essential Cornerstone of Animation History.
This text is a pure labor of love [read more]
-- Dave Mason

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the world of animation should consider this book a must-read. [read more]
-- Leonard Maltin

The book isn't a valentine to the labour movement and an attack on management. He discusses the involvement of organized crime in unions, the intramural conflict between rival animation unions, and the generation, skills and technology gaps that have alienated union members from each other. He also respects managers like Walt Disney, Max Fleischer, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera and Jeffrey Katzenberg, acknowledging their contributions to the field. [read more]
-- Mark Mayerson

Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Mr. Magoo, Fred Flintstone, the Pink Panther and Bart Simpson, are the biggest stars in the business. But they couldn't make the slightest move or even open their mouths, without the help of the animation worker [read more]
-- Graham Hill, film/TV reviewer

Pacific Historical Review
Tom Sito is the perfect person to tell the story of the struggles of animators for decent wages and working conditions. [read more]
-- Mike Neilsen, Wesley College

Not just for animation buffs
DRAWING THE LINE is the only available history of the first American artists' union. It's a smashing read since Tom Sito knows how to tell a good story and knows a lot about the field (he's had a thirty year career in animation and also was President of the MPSC union for years.) DRAWING THE LINE is useful for students of American labor history as well as animators.
-- Smee

Tom Sito has written a book called Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson, and it tells a fascinating tale. It starts out as a history of the Animation Union (currently known as the Animation Guild), but winds up being a history of animation itself. [read more]
-- Libby Reed

Amazon.com
Yes, this is a history of union activity within the American animation industry, but don't think for a moment that it is a dry, dusty treatise on labor practises. Tom Sito has written a lively, anecdotal, funny, hugely entertaining and magnificently informative history of the animated cartoon. [read more]
-- M2 Glendale, Cal.

Amazon.com
Tom Sito achieved something of a miracle-- he made a potentially boring "academic" subject fresh, entertaining, and a wonderful read. [read more]
-- Eric Niderost, Chabot College

Thanks to all these conversations that Tom had with animators who worked back in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s, he now has this treasure trove of stories about what it was really like to work at Disney, Warners, Fleischers and UPA back in the day. Back when Walt wasn't the kindly old Uncle Walt that we saw on television. But -- rather -- a somewhat desperate producer who was just trying to keep his troops motivated so that they could then complete all of the pictures that Disney had in its production pipeline at that time.

It's this aspect of "Drawing the Line" that I particularly enjoyed. Sito doesn't tell these stories from the safety of sixty years later. But -- rather -- Tom tries to put you right there in the moment. To give you a real sense of what was really on the line when these artists went out on strike.

By the way, "Drawing the Line" isn't just a book about the Walt Disney Company. While there are many entertaining stories in here about the various colorful personalities that worked at that studio over the past 75 years, Sito's after bigger game. He's out to tell the story of the impact that unionization had on the entire animation industry in the United States. The battles that were won as well as the jobs that were lost.

Which sounds like it could be pretty dry stuff. But not the way that Tom Sito tells this story. "Drawing the Line" gets the balance just right. It mixes large chunks of well-researched animation history with big handfuls of amusing anecdotes.
-- Jim Hill

It’s been said that in Hollywood nobody knows anything. With the publication of Tom Sito’s book, Drawing the Line the Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson, that statement no longer applies to animation. More than just a chronological litany of union organization efforts, Sito’s well documented and heavily researched work is a history of animation itself and the life and times of the countless thousands of men and women whose hard work and dedication to their craft have brought so many endearing and enduring characters to life.
-- Chuck

Amazon.com reviews
AMAZING, COLOSSAL, STUPENDOUS, and it's fun, too!
This is not your typical university press book.
This is not your typical film or animation history book.
Tom Sito's DRAWING THE LINE is essential reading for historians of the 20th century, for labor historians, for filmmakers, for animators, and for anyone who wants to read an outstanding piece of writing.
It has a cast of thousands: Mafiosi, musicians, politicians, inventors, movie stars, producers, and animated cartoonists who were also labor activists. If you are in the animation or film business, or a labor union, this book will raise your eyebrows more than once. If you are none of the above but want to learn about these things from the artist/worker's perspective, this book will educate you while entertaining you. (Remember when animated films did that?) DRAWING THE LINE fills a huge gap in the history of the American labor movement. It is valuable history and it is also a lot of fun to read.
-- Tim Tam "broadwaylocal"

Ace animator and former Hollywood Animation Guild president Tom Sito ( The Lion King, Shrek) is our knowledgeable guide in this colorful journey through the birth and evolution of artists unions in toon town. You can get the real skinny on how the Screen Cartoonists Union fought for the rights of artists in a medium that wasn't exactly embracing labor initiatives in the 20th Century. Legendary figures like Walt Disney, Chuck Jones and Max Fleischer show up in these anecdote-filled pages, which help readers get a clear understanding of many historic events (from strikes and walk-outs to blacklists and long wage negotiation battles). As we embark on a new era where artists can express themselves via new platforms, it's essential to learn about how animators banded together to earn their rightful place on the totem pole in the past decades. And Sito is just the right man to give us this perspective.
-- Books We Love

The really wonderful thing about this book isn't the incredible facts about events that led up to our current state of affairs in the post-production world of motion picture making, it isn't the inside view from the old-timers of animation -- Yes, those are all wonderful things to have within a book on the animation world, but it is the prose of Tom Sito that makes this book sing!

I'm so glad that he has written his first. It's such a great read, I couldn't put it down. My wife had to take it away from me or I would have stayed up all night reading and been zonked at work. I can't wait for the next one.
-- Chillin

rock writer and President, Jon Landau Management, Inc.: Paul Buhle's Jews and American Popular Culture takes on an essential subject with tremendous range, subtly and sensitivity. Above all, the writing of the many excellent contributors is as colorful and rich as the subject itself. I came away from reading this book with a much clearer and more focused idea of the role of Jewish personality, values, and thinking in the formation of modern American culture than ever before
-- Jon Landau

Paul Buhle: Drawing the Line
This is one of the most extraordinary 'insider' books ever written about Hollywood, and an essential contribution to the rising field of animation studies. This is the intelligent, thoughtful voice of the popular artist who knows his field's history well enough to explain it clearly--something very rare. It will be hailed as a unique source of information and insight, with material and observations impossible for anyone outside the profession proper.
-- Paul Buhle, Brown University

Jerry Beck
Drawing the Line is an important work of film scholarship that discusses and documents a great American artform and industry from a unique point of view. It's the story of how the artisans behind our most popular cartoon characters struggled to get fair wages and fair treatment from their employers. Tom Sito, by virtue of his unique position as one of the leading animators of the current generation, a student of world history and a former head of the Screen Cartoonists Union himself, is the perfect person to document this subject. And he does so with hundreds of sharp anecdotes, witty quotes and his own clever writing style.
-- Jerry Beck, author of The Animated Movie Guide

Susan Hayden
If you are into unions, or animation, you may want to read Tom Sito's book on "Drawing the Line- The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson". Sito worked on Shrek and many other animated classics. This book is about the human cost of making all those thousands of cels that become animated films and TV shows. The Screen Cartoonists Union had been the victims of blacklists and lockouts from those fuzzy people who really love money more than they love children. ( my own view.)
-- Susan Hayden, New Film Books from UK Press. 6/13/2006


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